FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Jean watched the white mist dissipate around her, slowly revealing a small patch of forest between two long streets. Her head tilted slightly in curiosity before discipline forced her mind back to the task at hand. She had work to do here. There would be time for her to explore the world of the humans at a later time.

Her cold, light blue eyes started the process of surveying the trees and rocks around her to make sure there was nothing waiting in ambush for her arrival. She had long since developed a sense that would tell her when a virus was nearby, but at the moment, she wasn't getting anything from that sense. She would have to expand the area that she was searching. This was probably the most important assignment of her entire lifetime. Many Interdictors failed their first assignments in the Real World, and either died or were discredited, dishonored, and stripped of their rank and position as a result. The humans that lived in this world obviously didn't know it, but they owed their lives many times over to chapters of this order. They were their protection against the ravages of virus type Digimon who would have nothing against destroying them, even though they wouldn't get any data from their destruction. Of course, they weren't doing it specifically for the humans. There were a number of Vaccine and Data Digimon here as well, and it was her duty to protect them.

"Hmm," she said to herself. If the virus was aware of her presence, he would no doubt seek her out: this was not only part of the lecture the Control had given her, but it was her personal experience as well. Still, she was surprised that she wasn't able to detect its presence. Detection was one of her most prized skills; there was no way she could be slipping in that. Maybe this Digimon had something special about him that made him especially difficult to detect. She found that unlikely, since most such abilities were used by lower-level Digimon to keep themselves from being found; she had never heard of anything like that being used by a Mega.

She knelt down on the ground to concentrate and widen her search radius once again. If there was anything in this city, anything at all, she would find it. Ah...there was something. It wasn't much, but it was certainly something. It wasn't a Mega, though--it didn't have enough data. It was only a powerful Rookie at best. That wasn't what she was looking for, but it was something she would have to deal with after she had silenced her sole and primary target.

Rather than expending herself any further, she stopped concentrating and rested back against her feet in a meditative posture, resolving to wait for her target to come to her instead.

* * * * * * * *

"Which do you prefer?" Lex asked Jamie, wondering at the human's opinion of the Digital World. With his own tamer, it seemed to hold a certain fascination, but that was probably because it was something new and exciting for him. Jamie, however, had been there before.

"Well, I live here, Lex, this place is my home. Although the Digital World is an exciting vacation spot from time to time."

"Not for me..."

"Angie, Lex, don't be sad," Angie giggled and hugged him, lifting him in the air to bring his head back to her level and kissing his nose before putting him back down. "You don't have to go back,"

"I really don't understand you, Lex..." Jamie began, but Lex interrupted by laughing softly.

"That's what Oliver says!" he giggled.

"No, I'm serious...you're a virus, but you aren't anything like Jes. You can't even stand to see other Digimon fight. All the other viruses I've seen and known have loved combat."

"I'm not Jes," he shrugged beneath his robes. "And I've fought more than I want to."

"Did you get bored of it?"

"No; I never liked having to fight to begin with, but I've never really thought about why. What's there to enjoy about it? The only thing that results is pain..."

Lex looked away from everyone, ashamed of some of the things he had done. He wasn't being entirely honest. There was one time where he had fallen into a primitive rage and destroyed an entire settlement of smaller Digimon, absorbing the data of each and every one of them. That was how he had evolved to Mega, actually. He wasn't proud of that particular fact of life, that he had climbed to his current level on the backs of a hundred or so weaker Digimon, but it was the truth. It was a truth that he didn't think he could bring himself to ever tell anyone, even Angie, out of fear.

"'s alright, Lexie," Angie said, rubbing the top of his head in an amusing, yet soothing way that only she could possibly know how. "You're not there anymore, you don't have to."

"yeah..." he smiled. She was right, he wouldn't have to do it as much as he did in the Digital World. Most of the Digimon that were here had tamers, and didn't want to fight unless they had no other choice. That was basically the reason that he had started his journey toward the Real World in the first place.

"I'm sorry I brought the subject up, Lex, I just didn't understand. I still don't, really."

"It's alright, I know what you meant. Besides, I'm not normal," he giggled, poking fun at himself.

"That's why I love you," Angie interjected, sweeping Lex off of his feet and laying him across her arms. He didn't protest.

"Because I'm abnormal?" they both giggled beyond control, out of the corner of Lex's eyes.

"And sexy." She quickly felt him up, and he couldn't help but make a soft murring noise as her hand moved over his chest.

"You two are walking piles of hormones, aren't you?"

"Pretty much," Lex answered for the both of them, feeling up Angie in return. She made a similar noise to the one that he had, although it was slightly higher in pitch. He jumped down from Angie's arms and gave her a big, loving hug. "If you ever find a mate as perfect as she is, I'm sure you'll be just the same way."

"Perhaps," he answered.

"Doubtless," Angie corrected with the widest of possible smiles on her face. As Lex was admiring Angie's complexion, an unexplained feeling surged through him: a feeling of anxiety, fear and anticipation. Lex knew all too well that feeling: another Digimon, one that hd didn't know, had just bio-emerged somewhere nearby. Looking in the direction that his mind was telling him it was, it took every ounce of his will to not immediately start moving in that direction; the only thing that ensured his staying here was the thought of what Angie would do if he was gone.

This Digimon was powerful...whatever it was, it's power hovered somewhere around his own. Unconsciously, he started taking a few steps in the direction of the Digimon while he was contemplating its level. That was the lust for data that he had fought all of his life. He didn't feel it as much around Jes, since he knew here, and not at all with Angie--he immediately shuddered at the thought as the image of him defeating Angie and absorbing her data invaded his mind.

"What's wrong, Lexie?" Angie asked sweetly, hugging him from behind and putting her head on his shoulder. A pang of guilt immediately surfaced and ran through his entire mind and body for even thinking about absorbing Angie's data. There was no way that he could ever bring himself to tell her about that, either. "Lex? What's wrong?"

"I..." he started, "A Digimon."

"You're a Digimon?" She giggled naively. "I knew that."

"No," he said, shaking his head where he normally would have giggled with his mate. "I can feel one."

"Oh," she giggled as if she didn't have a single care in the world, blissfully unaware of what could be her impending doom. "I was never any good at sensing other Digimon. Maybe it's a friendly one."

"I don't think so ... he said. Lex was afraid; he wasn't afraid like he was in the Digital World, though. There, he always had the option of escape, of simply running away and starting over somewhere else. Here, he couldn't do that since he had people depending on him that he may not be able to take them with him where he went.

"Can you tell what level it is?" Jamie asked.

"... what?" Lex answered after a few moments, having not been paying attention. He was too busy staring off into the distance where this other Digimon was.

"The Digimon. What level is it?"

"...It's powerful..."

"If it's powerful, I'm sure Jes will want to be going after it," Jamie said sadly. Jes! Lex had forgotten...he was right, this Digimon was much more than Jes could handle as a rookie...he giggled inwardly at the thought of telling that to her face and imagining the result. He would probably get hit or something.

"Oh, right...we wouldn't want anything to happen to her," Angie said, giggling only slightly with that statement. Lex giggled. They probably wanted to get there as quickly as possible. Taking Angie's hand, he pulled it above his head, twirling his mate in the process of pulling her against him. Jamie sighed, and Lex had no doubt that he was shaking his head as he put his hand on Lex's free arm. Concentrating for the split second required on what the humans called their 'hotel', he giggled at the sight he saw in his mind's eye, but decided to let the others see for themselves rather than tell it to them before he teleported. With a wide, unexplained grin on his face, he teleported them back to their room, giving them the opportunity to witness a sight that Lex found incredibly cute.

Oliver had fallen asleep next to Jes, petting her head gently while his own rested on her chest.

"She's going to kill him when she wakes up." Jamie said worriedly, scowling a little at the sight.

"I don't think so ... listen." Angie giggled a little and thrust Jamie's head near Jes'. Curious as to what he was missing, Lex moved his own head in. What he heard surprised him, mostly since it was coming from Jes: she was purring. She was actually purring. He was almost a little jealous. Throughout his life, whenever he had the chance, he would get as close to mates as he could so that he could live vicariously through them for at least a little while. Many Digimon like Jes that he had been around purred when they were happy, and Lex found it to be a very soothing sound--not that there was anything wrong with the mate he had. For some reason, though, it made Jamie frown.

"She's probably dreaming about something; she won't be happy when she wakes up...trust me." Angie smiled and shook her head.

"Weren't you wondering where Jes was last night?"

"No, she disappears a lot like that."

"She was right there, with Oliver."

"... she was?" he looked at Lex, obviously seeking some kind of confirmation.

"Yep." A few giggles escaped him as he remembered what they had done while they were in bed. "I ..."

"Get away from me." Jes said without moving.

"Jes?"

"Now."

Lex couldn't help but laugh at Jes and Jamie. She seemed so hostile towards him, and he knew he shouldn't find it funny, but he did. He had almost completely forgot about the Digimon he had sensed earlier, which would have been absolutely fine with him, but the same feeling as before drew him to the window, where he pressed his face and hands against it. He immediately fought primitive, primal urge to seek out the Digimon and fight it, while simultaneously trying to fight the slightly more developed urges to get further away from it.

"Jamie. Digimon." Jes said simply. He didn't hear her stand up, but he heard the sounds of Oliver stirring and waking up, and those were signal enough to know that she was standing. "I'm going."

"No! It's too strong..." he broke away from his inner battles, driven there by the thought of losing one of his friends. He didn't want that at all; whether she approved of it or not, he clung to her with his hands around her waist, anchoring her to this part of the world and preventing her from teleporting away. "Fight it, Jes ... fight the urge!"

"I want to. I need the data," she said, shrugging lex away from her.

"What's going on?" Oliver asked, clearly not understanding what Lex and Jes were talking about.

"Jes wants to go fight," Jamie explained.

"I need the data," she explained. Lex didn't see that as a valid argument in the least, but Jamie was right: Jes was nothing like he was.

"Don't; it's too powerful."

"I'm not going to stand here and be insulted by somebody like you! You're an insult to Digimon, not that I care. Now, I'm leaving." Finishing what she said, she pushed Lex completely away and disappeared, reappearing outside the window where she started running in the direction that Lex knew the Digimon to be in.

"Jes! Wait, I ..." Oliver sighed, watching Jes through the window. That poor human looked like he had all the weight of the world on his shoulders, and there was no way for Lex to help his Tamer carry that burden for him. "Will she be alright, Lex?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "That Digimon is much stronger than a Rookie."

"You have to help her!" Oliver started to beg Jamie, grabbing his hand in shaking it. "She's your Digimon, it's your responsibility!"

"Jes doesn't want my help, she never has. But you're right."

"Lex, can you help her?"

"Help her fight?"

"... survive." Lex nodded solemnly. If it meant that much to his tamer, he would put aside his compunctions against combat for a while to protect what was obviously a blossoming relationship between Jes and Oliver. He looked at Angie, who, despite the seriousness of the situation, was smiling almost as widely as always.

"I don't suppose I could convince you to stay here."

"Nope," she grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly. "You're stuck with me."

"Alright, then." He giggled a little, trying to develop some confidence that he would be able to protect her if it came to that. "Everybody touch me." Three hands--one of which was already on his body--made contact with him, and once they did, he quickly disappeared, teleporting to the closest point he could get to near the Digimon, hoping that he wouldn't be too late.

* * * * * * * *

Something was coming. It wasn't her target, though. It was the weaker virus that she had sensed earlier, and it was coming this way, quite surprisingly. Whatever it was, it would soon learn not to trifle with agents of the Order, although that lesson could be it's last and final one. Her target would simply have to wait until she was no longer occupied.

Without standing up, remaining in her kneeling position, she summoned her staff by opening her hand and then closing it around the imaginary rod, which quickly became a reality. The ornate, complicated design of woven metal on its head was the source of most of her powers as an Interdictor. It served as a focusing point for energies involved in her magical attacks, and the staff itself was well-enough weighted and balanced to be used as a melee weapon if the situation called for it, although that was rarely the case since she had other, more intimidating instruments of physical combat available to her.

There would probably be no need for those, at least not against this particular foe. Her actual target would, in all likelihood require every tool, weapon and tactic available to her, but whatever Digimon was watching her from the nearby buildings from the west would prove only a minimal and temporary distraction from her true purpose here.

In the interests of honor--something this Virus obviously had none to less--Jean was more than willing to concede the first attack to it, especially since it was of such a lower level than herself. That wouldn't halt her, however, from taking advantage of her opponent believing they had some kind of advantage.

Her opponent, apparently, had some skill in stealth, since she couldn't actually hear the footsteps or movements of the Digimon, and could only determine its location as it moved by sensing its location with her innate abilities.

What she COULD hear, however, was the swipe of an arm at her neck. She ducked her head down, being missed by the attack by a comfortable margin. That had been for her honor and integrity. Now, it was her turn. In a single, swift motion, she turned her staff on end so that the end normally placed on the ground, adorned with a sharp metal tip pointed toward the stomach of her bent-over opponent. She followed through with a thrust. Another kill for the Order...

* * * * * * * *

Jes' mind was able to realize what was happening before anything happened. Her eyes widened in fear, realizing that she had quickly lost this battle. Now interested only in saving her life, she tried to move out of the way ... but it as too late. The robed Digimon drove her staff mercilessly through Jes stomach. Sharp pains ran through her body one as it pierced her skin, again as it rushed through her, and again as it exited, passing through her back just beside her spine. She had been injured before, of course, by all manner of attacks: energy, elemental, magical, physical ... but nothing had ever happened to her like this before. This was just vicious. Her opponent moved her gloved hands away from its bracing point between the shaft and her stomach, and Jes had to move quickly to replace her hand where her opponents' had been in order to keep herself from sliding down along the weapon and doing even more damage to her.

"One of the problems with you is that you have no moderation," the female voice of the creature that had just ran her through. "And that will be your failing."

"No," Jes said in disbelief. She had always known that she would eventually lose a fight; that was just her lot in life, to fight and win until eventually she fought and lost. It had never bothered her before, it was just how it worked. A lack of fear contributed greatly to success, but now it gripped every part of her body.

"No?" The blue-robed Digimon's head, covered by a hood much in the same way Lex's usually was, tilted sideways and awaited her response. Jes decided then that she was going to do something she had never done before in her life: she was going to beg for mercy.

"Please, I don't want to die...I...my mate," she coughed, tasting blood.

"Your mate? Is he a Mega?"

"No..."

"Hmph." She sounded almost disappointed. A few moments of thought made her realize that she was talking about Lex. Had she been sent her to kil Lex? Jes didn't care what happened to Lex, of course, she was only interested in herself, especially right now, but he was Oliver's Digimon. "I'll deal with your mate in due time."

Jes definitely had objections to that. Oliver wasn't a Digimon, he couldn't protect himself against the things that someone like this could do. If Lex's priorities lied with Angie, then he had no one to protect. That should have been her job; but it was too late for that.

"W-who are you?"

"Clerimon. Of the 76th Chapter of the Order of Interdictors. Out of the Citadel itself."

"...?"

"Your life, Virus, your reign of terror, is at an end--"

"No, wait!--"

"Eden's Seven Blessed Blades." There wasn't anything Jes could do except watch, clutching the staff with both hands. Seven swords, only outlines at first, began to form in a seemingly random formation, each and every one of them pointed directly at Jes.

"I'm sorry, Oliver...." Time seemed to slow down as the seven swords started to fly toward her at high speed. Not wanting to see anything in her last moment of life, she closed her eyes and saw nothing but darkness. It was something she would have to get used to.

"Prohibition Papers!" The tinking sound of metal being deflected away forcefully rang out around her, making her open her eyes in surprise to see what was going on. That was one of Lex's attacks--one she had before considered useless--and there was Lex, standing about twenty feet away from Jes and the Clerimon.

"How dare you interrupt my judgment!" The Clerimon yelled, clearly agitated by Lex's presence--which was entirely understandable, in Jes' opinion.

"Jes!" The jokes about Lex running through her mind at the most inconvienient of times were quickly wiped from her mind when she heard Oliver's voice yelling her name. At first, she was afraid that he was going to be angry with her for leaving so abruptly and not listening to anyone, but there was no anger or malice in his voice--it was all concern and care, something Jes didn't know very well at all. Despite the obvious danger for him, he started running at full speed to where Jes was bent over.

"I need that," the Clerimon announced, grabbing her staff and yanking it upwards and out of her. She slumped to the ground and winced, the pain in her stomach renewed by the removal of the weapon from her.

"Jes..." Oliver arrived and knelt down next to her and looking at the bleeding hole in her stomach. Partly because she was embarrassed at the fact that she had lost and that had been done to her, and partly because she didn't want Oliver to see her like this, she covered it with a paw and smiled weakly at him and closing her eyes. "No, don't close your eyes. Don't ..."

"I'll be alright ... nothing vital." Jes answered, not bothering to speak in complete sentences. That ability had, for the most part, passed. "I just need to rest," she answered sleepily. She felt one of his hands slide underneath her knees and the other one slide under her back. At first, she thought that he was going to cuddle with her, and was about to say something about how that probably wasn't a very good time, but then she felt herself being lifted into the air. "Wha...?" Opening her eyes in confusion, she realized through a growing haze that Oliver had picked her up; she was immediately surprised that he was capable of lifting her at all, much less pick her up.

"You're heavier than you look," he laughed nervously, his voice straining noticeably with the effort of supporting her weight. She answered with a nervous laugh of her own.

"Is that ... insult?" she joked.

* * * * * * * *

Jean cocked her head at some of the things that were being said behind her. Although it went against everything she knew, she turned around and looked at the two of them. If she hadn't known any better and had the knowledge that Viruses weren't capable of love, she would have said that the two of them were lovers. Of course, she knew that was impossible, but the human and the virus were putting on a very convincing.

"Please ... don't harm them," the Mega--her target--said. His voice wasn't constantly harsh like all of the Viruses that she had encountered; it was quite the other way around. His voice was laced with care and concern. An illusion, no doubt, intended to take her off guard and give him the opportunity he needed to attack.

"I'll harm whoever the dictates of my superiors target!" she snapped. Abnormal behavior or not, she wasn't going to stand here and be lectured by a virus. What's more, she was standing idly while she should have been doing her duty to the Order. She reached onto either side of the inside of her robes and grasped the hilts of two long, shining swords and removed them from their hiding places. Charged with elemental energy, one of them was wreathed in a winding flame, spitting a small ball of fire a few inches into the air every so often. The other crackled wildly with electricity, emitting small bolts of lightning into the surrounding air.

With a growl, she left the fire-enchanted sword held off to the side with the point directed at the ground and pointed the other one at her target. She wasn't going to be manipulated by the likes of them.

" Heaven's Edict!" she yelled, utilizing one of her instant attacks to prevent it from being countered. A burst of shining white light immediately appeared around the virus, burning him with the cleansing light of the Order. Normally, that attack was received with loud screeches or screaming and the quick dissolution of whatever it was surrounding. She had never fought a Mega before, so she wasn't exactly sure what she was doing, but that attack should have been sufficient to at least incapacitate him and keep him from doing anything while she closed the distance to use her more powerful physical attacks.

When she started to take steps in the direction of the Magusmon, the light was thrown outward in all directions, driven back to her where it came from and beyond by what seemed like a very strong wind blowing in all directions. This thing was stronger than she had anticipated; why hadn't it attacked her yet? Or maybe it wasn't ... as the Digimon was revealed to her, she saw the position that it was in: it was kneeling on the ground as if exhausted and spent. She smiled inwardly at her triumph and started to take steps in his direction again, bringing her swords to bear on him. By the time he regained solid footing, he would no longer need it for anything.

She swung one of her swords in a wide arc, aiming to remove the offending Digimon's head. Her other sword was thrust directly towards the thing's torso. He muttered something unintelligible, then moved his forearms in the way of both attacks, where they made contact with her swords, deflecting them away in an almost-blinding flash of fire and electricity.

"You have been judged by the council, virus, and you will accept its judgment!" she yelled, starting to grow frustrated with his ability to neutralize every one of her attacks. If it continued, she was going to be spent before she could finish her task with just this one, let alone the disabled one behind her, and that would reflect horribly on her record. In a frustration very unbecoming to a member of her Order, she lashed out and used every technique that she knew to land her blades on the Magusmon, but every single one of them was blocked by whatever it was he was doing. Every blow, however, drove him closer and close to the ground, until he was finally lying on the ground and his arms fell limply to his sides, presumably in exhaustion. She felt a certain satisfaction at succeeding at the first task assigned to her as a Mega.

Placing the tip of one of the swords against her target's neck, he looked up at her, and for the first time, she was able to see his face--until then, his face had been hidden underneath the hood of his robe. He was a mirror image of her own form, only he wasn't the same color as she was. His scales were colored red instead of white. That similarity made her hesitate for a split second in delivering the punishment that was due him, long enough for her to lose track of what was happening around her.

"Stop it! Leave him alone!" A flurry of white flew at her from somewhere to her right and knocked her down, forcing her weapons out of her hands and onto the ground a few feet away. When the momentary confusion at what had happened passed, she saw what it was that had jumped onto her and knocked her to the ground. It was an Angewomon ... an antivirus? She was at a loss for words...one of the Digimon that she protected had never interfered with her work before. "Don't you see he doesn't want to fight you!?"

"..." If it was possible, she was even more at a loss for words now than she was before. That possibility had never occurred to her. She had never considered that, but that was certainly what it seemed like.

"Why are you with them?" she asked, still quite confused about what an antivirus like her would be doing spending any of her time around Digimon like them...the first thing that crossed her mind was that she had been somehow corrupted by them, but she didn't seem like she had been brainwashed. Trying to rack her brain for any other possibilities, she looked from the Angewomon to the Magusmon whose wretched life had just been saved.

"Because he's my mate, and I love him!"

"..."

"Aww, Angie, I love you too!" The Magusmon jumped onto the Angewomon, knocked her to the ground, obviously playing. Jean watched, dumbfounded and awestruck, at the sheer and utter glee on the face of 'Angie' as what had been described as her mate licked her face.

"Hey, this is serious!" The Angewomon giggled, playfully trying to push the Angewomon away. Fine ... let them do that. She would deal with that particular problem later. For now, she would finish off the other Digimon. The black, foxlike one was still in the arms of the human. That didn't really matter to her, since she was more than capable of being precise enough to hit just the Digimon from this short distance.{mospagebreak}

" Solar Flare!" raising her hand up into the air, she called down a bright, flaming sphere that raced downward from the sky at the Digimon that was in the human's arms. BiRemon ... that was the species. She was glad that she was taking care of it now, before it went incognito as an antivirus later in its life.

" Prohibition Papers!" The same counter-attack that had neutralized her attack against BiRemon earlier neutralized this one, as well. This was all too confusing for her...

"Why do you protect them!?" she yelled in frustration.

"...they're my friends," he answered simply, as if the answer should have been obvious to her. It wasn't, not in the least.

"W-w-what...why...?" she stared blankly. She hadn't been taught how to react to this situation. Years of training, a lifetime of destroying Digimon just like this one hadn't prepared her for what was unfolding before her eyes right now.

"She doesn't know any better," the Magusmon commented, speaking to his self-described mate. Jean didn't know what she meant. She must have been talking about Jean, but what was it she didn't know any better than not to do?

"Oliver." The BiRemon said suddenly, a black aura surrounding her. "I'm sorry for putting you in Danger." A moment of inactivity by Jean cost her the most important advantage that she needed to win against these viruses; the BiRemon digivolved to one of its higher forms, wielding a long, wickedly curved sword. In terms of swordsmanship, she could probably best her relatively easy if she had the use of her own weapons, only that they were on the ground to either side of her well beyond her reach, owing to the Angewomon who had pinned her the ground after she had attacked her original target. A noise from the Magusmon drew her eyes over to the viral mirror image of herself, who was gently kissing what was undoubtedly his mate. There was no being wrong...they were in love. Despite everything she knw about Virus type Digimon, every bit of wisdom that the Order had instilled her that told her Viruses were incapable love and only reproduced out of lost, there was no doubt about it, they were lovers.

Even though she knew that a threat was looming nearby, she continued to occupy herself with trying to somehow justify all of this in her mind. It simply wasn't possible, he was a virus. No matter how many times she told that to herself, he continued to gently hold the Angewomon, lovingly making sure that she hadn't been injured by what she had done. Jean had been sent her to destroy that, and she almost had ... how could she?

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't rip you apart right here," the former BiRemon said, leveling it in line with her neck. She scowled slightly, turning a hooded and concealed, yet nonetheless scowling and angry face towards the offending Digimon. This was the behavior that she had come to expect from viruses. That behavior was the reason that she had fought them year after year for her entire life. Growling again and mentally biting herself for the momentary lapse in proper judgement, she took a step back and readied herself for combat by kicking her staff up into her hands, telling herself that this Virus may have gone up a level or two, she was still its superior.

" Death's Head Strike!" Her opponent's sword swung around in a wide arc and gathered a veil of darkness around it. Jean put her staff in the way of it. When the blade of her opponent made contact with it, she could feel the strength of the blow in vibrations so severe, they almost made her drop her own weapon.

With the Virus' arms still outward from delivering that blow, Jean seized the opportunity and stepped underneath of them, ducking outside of that danger zone and setting herself up for an attack, quickly beginning a spin that would put her in a place to do damage to the upper back and neck of the Virus.

Her maneuvering was answered by an extremely quick backhand to the head with the arm she had just ducked under, and a punch to the chest from the other one, still grasping the sword. That punch knocked her back and made her lose both her weapon and her breath. A look of disbelief crossed her face as she realized the implications of what had just happened: she had lost. A Mega, and she had lost, not even to her equal-in-level target, but to this thing.

"You're trash, whoever you are. No, you're actually worse than trash," the Digimon growled, flicking her wrist and bringing her cruel sword back to her side. "Now be a good little girl and DIE!" Grabbing the hilt of the sword with both hands, her attacked leaned forward and started swinging downward with a blow that would be more than sufficient to slice in her two; all that she could do was stand witness to her own death. Straightening out her body, she held her head up, ready to meet her end with dignity as was her duty upon such failure.

The killing blow, however, never came. Something had halted the movement of what otherwise would have killed her, sparing her life for the moment. That something was Magusmon, who had teleported in between the two of them and grabbed the other Virus' wrists just before Jean would have died. The two of them were currently struggling for martial supremacy, and although the Magusmon was stronger than he looked, he was still a spellcaster above everything else, and he was slowly losing.

"Jes! No!"

"Get out of my way!" One of the knees belonging to 'Jes' rose into Magusmon's stomach. He wheezed slightly, but he didn't back down. Instead, he straightened himself back up and ropped one of his hands down, placing it against Jes' armored chest and muttering something beneath his breath. Space visibly rippled outward from his hand, and Jes' face contorted in either pain or concentration. A sound akin to air slowly moving into a vacuum then being pushed out in an incredibly loud explosion filled the air, and the large, black Digimon that had attacked her and started all of this was thrown back to the feet of the human who had picked her up earlier.

Somehow, between where she had been standing and where she was laying now, she had reverted back to the form she had been in earlier, and the human who had been holding her earlier picked her up again, giving everyone else a very mean, evil look that would have looked much more fitting on the Digimon in his arms.

"You...you saved me..." Jean said with disbelief, looking down to the robe trim of the Virus who defied everything she knew about Viruses. If that Digimon could have beaten Jean, and this Magusmon got rid of her with such ease, he easily could have done the same with Jean herself. Why didn't he?

"Yep!" he giggled. She was at a complete and utter loss for words.

"Why... ... ... ?" she asked, almost detached from the situation. "I came here to kill you..." He shrugged, just smiling happily.

"But you didn't," he giggled. "And you aren't now."

"I suppose ..." his answers were doing nothing but confuse her even further.

"So what's your name?"

"...Jean..." Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tightly. At first, she was ready to retaliate, and almost did with the thought that all of this had been one big deception with the goal of making her lose her guard. She probably would have preferred that, actually.

Before she had a chance to act on the welcome impulse of destroying this anomaly once and for all, he released her from his grip and flipped down his hood. The act didn't reveal anything she hadn't already seen, but it was something she could never do in view of others.

"I'm Lex!" he giggled. "And that's Angie, Jes, Oliver, and Jamie!" he pointed to the Angewomon, the BiRemon, the human that was holding 'Jes', and another nearby human that she hadn't noticed before.